Well-Known Member

[h=1]Taxpayers hit for MILLIONS as six states put inmates on Obamacare plans (which also boosts enrollment numbers)[/h]

Obamacare is fast becoming a tool to save counties money that they would otherwise spend on health care for inmates who have not yet been convicted of crimes

The Affordable Care Act excludes convicts, but opens a loophole for jail officials who want to avoid using their own budgets to help sick prisoners awaiting trial

Taxpayers in all 50 states will cover the costs for county governments as Obamacare's expenses spiral upward

Obamacare's enrollment statistics will also increase artificially as inmates are enrolled as soon as they are booked and fingerprinted

By David Martosko, U.s. Political EditorPUBLISHED: 23:22 EST, 6 February 2014 | UPDATED: 11:16 EST, 7 February 2014
Cash-strapped counties in six states are enrolling inmates in Obamacare health insurance plans as a way to shift costs to the federal government  a tactic that's legal but frustrating for some Republicans who don't want to see the success levels of President Obama's signature law inflated artificially.
In many cases jails are registering inmates so they'll be better equipped to access addiction counseling and psychiatric care after their release, lowering the likelihood that they'll return for more time behind bars.

The Affordable Care Act prohibits the enrollment of full-time prisoners serving sentences, but many prisoners awaiting trial in prison jumpsuits are being enrolled purely to save county governments money  and shift costs to the feds  when they lengthy hospital stays are required.

Obamacare is fast becoming a tool to save counties money that they would otherwise spend on health care for inmates who have not yet been convicted of crimes

The law specifically excludes people who are 'incarcerated, other than incarceration pending the disposition of charges'  legal language referring to the two-thirds of county jail inmates who have been denied bail or can't afford to post a bond to gain release before trial.

'This provision,' says Correctional Risk, Inc., a criminal justice consultancy, 'will likely allow eligible inmates who are pending disposition of charges to enroll in a health insurance plan through their state insurance exchange prior to conviction.'
Not everyone thinks this is a good thing, particularly congressional Republicans who want to see the Obamacare law's net cost to he federal government go down, not up.

'We just found out that Obamacare is going to cost $2 trillion over 10 years,' an aide to a Republican senator, who requested anonymity, told MailOnline on Thursday. 'Now we're going to have local governments picking our pockets to pay for their jail inmates? What a disgrace.'

'It makes you wonder,' the Senate staffer said, 'when the president gets excited about enrolling a few million people: How many of them are criminals?'

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The $2 trillion figure came from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which issued a report Tuesday covering the economic impacts of the law.

Bloomberg reports that nearly 7 million people were incarcerated, paroled or serving probation terms in the U.S. at the end of 2012. And every year about 13 million people  one in every 25 Americans  are booked into county jails each year.

On January 28, San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi asked the city's Board of Supervisors for permission to sign up inmates for Obamacare as soon as they're fingerprinted and processed. His office estimates that the local government will save $2,500 in the long run for each inmate it enrolls.

That's because emergency room visits and treatment for chronic conditions can pile up when patients are uninsured.

But since most jailed inmates come from socioeconomic conditions that make them more likely to be sick, their entry into the Obamacare system puts them on equal footing with elderly patients who will take more money out of the system than they put in.

Taxpayers in all 50 states will cover the costs for county governments as Obamacare's expenses spiral upward

Even young inmates are as likely to be as sick in the years after their release as older people who have never been in the criminal justice system, according to data from the National institutes of Health.

And the large majority who enroll in Medicaid instead of in private health plans will not contribute any money at all toward health care that taxpayers in all 50 states will have to subsidize.

And that cost-shifting will include some direct medical care for inmates while they're in custody.

In Oregon, Multnomah County Commissioners received a briefing in mid-January learning how much money they could save by putting inmates in Portland and the surrounding communities on Obamacare.

They have already applied for Medicaid for 700 inmates, targeting the sickest and most likely to consume county resources when they seek medical care.

The estimated $1 million savings from an annual health care bill of $15.7 million doesn't even include a potentially larger windfall from billing Medicaid for inmates' hospital treatments.

Obamacare's enrollment statistics will also increase artificially as inmates are enrolled as soon as they are booked and fingerprinted

The Affordable Care Act specifically allows county officials to submit hospital invoices to the federal government when the treatment takes more than 24 hours, but only if the patient is a Medicaid enrollee.

County officials estimate that between 70 and 80 per cent of their inmates are eligible.

Cook County, Illinois has similar numbers. Its officials have already enrolled about 2,000 prisoners.

One former Democratic U.S. senator who debated the Affordable Care Act told Bloomberg that he and his colleagues never intended for Obamacare to cover incarcerated people who are the responsibility of local governments.

'It starts to look a little like a scheme by the states and local jurisdictions to avoid responsibilities that are really theirs,' he said.

Well-Known Member

This doesn't surprise me at all - it was already policy for parole holds to not be issued for violators who were under arrest but at the hospital (at least in CA). We would not send the hold or warrant abstract until (s)he cleared the hospital and was booked into the county jail as once the hold was placed medical expenses were billed to the Dept of Corrections. I expect that once the Dept of Corrections learns this trick they will apply for obamacare for parolees pending a parole revocation hearing. It is typical for parolees to sit in county jail for 60-90 days pending the hearing meaning that (in CA alone) there will be a minimum of 50-200 parolees a day added to the system for up to 1/4 of a year each. More artificial inflation to the numbers of those "helped" by Obamacare and artificially increasing the success of the program.

Well-Known Member

This doesn't surprise me at all - it was already policy for parole holds to not be issued for violators who were under arrest but at the hospital (at least in CA). We would not send the hold or warrant abstract until (s)he cleared the hospital and was booked into the county jail as once the hold was placed medical expenses were billed to the Dept of Corrections. I expect that once the Dept of Corrections learns this trick they will apply for obamacare for parolees pending a parole revocation hearing. It is typical for parolees to sit in county jail for 60-90 days pending the hearing meaning that (in CA alone) there will be a minimum of 50-200 parolees a day added to the system for up to 1/4 of a year each. More artificial inflation to the numbers of those "helped" by Obamacare and artificially increasing the success of the program.

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Not really. They need healthy young people that pay premiums to sign up.
The current rates are based on federal government estimates provided to the insurance industry. These estimates are proving to be unrealistic. The CEO of Aetna has already gone on record saying that his company might have to pull out of the ACA market. Other insurance companies are performing similar analysis and might also do the same.
In the end Obamacare might turn out to be that party that some people showed up to, tasted the food, made a funny face and left immediately, wishing they had just stayed home.

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